More details about the future of the Domtar pulp and paper mill in Espanola has been released by the BMI Group.
Owned by three brothers, Paul Veldman says the company has successfully retooled infrastructure at other properties and will be carrying out a feasibility study at the mill to take a look at diversifying it for opportunities such as new paper or new types of biofuels.
He emphasizes they are holding discussions with other groups looking at putting the wood back to work with the goal is create and keep jobs locally as well as at nearby sawmills that once sold chips to the Espanola mill.
He says the intention is to take the mill from one single use to multiple, such as prefabricated, engineered wood panels and adds the pulping side will not be put back on line.
Veldman adds that they are also developing a closure plan for the on-site landfill, working with the province to finalize a closure plan.
He also reassures the community that the local golf club will continue to lease that property with a $1 lease per year.
The sale is now moving through the process, he adds, and they are looking to close the sale deal by next month, but neither Domtar nor BMI have released the purchase price.
BMI will acquire more than a million square feet of space within 100 acres of brownfield properties and hundreds more acres of woodland surrounding it.
Some of the buildings will be demolished, he says, but many more will stay and be retrofitted for various needs.
He adds capital upgrades to the hydroelectric power and dam asset, how the mill provided its own energy for over two decades, is expected to be carried out over the next five years and will require major investment, likely in the millions.
The company has several properties across Ontario, including former Resolute paper mill sites in Iroquois Falls and Fort Frances and the former Norampac cardboard plant in Red Rock.
BMI expanded its holdings last year in acquiring a closed Domtar paper mill in Port Huron, Michigan and another in Baie Comeau, Que.
